On Thursday, I'll walk into the Admin office of a new school district, sign my name on (several) dotted lines, and become a 4th grade La...

Let's start with the important announcement of the day: I am a big, fat liar-head. After spending last week revising my current p...

June was a writerly kind of month! There was... Kate Messner's Teacher's Write! Virtual Workshop (which is - thankfully - still h...

Remember how I promised my kids I would actively seek out publication for some of my writing? (And then threw a big hissy fit, positive...

It's 11pm, but I'm hurriedly doing a once-over on the house because we have friends coming over first thing in the morning. My h...

This is seriously rough. But this has been tumbling around in my head, refusing to let me write anything I'd actually want...

"I'll probably vomit, you know.” I say this to my husband, avoiding eye contact. I had just shared my student’s comments about ...

Today I (finally) picked up a copy of Wonder  by R.J. Palacio . There's been such a buzz about it online recently that I've been...

This year I keep hearing the same things over again: Standards have changed! The new STAAR test is more rigorous! Writing must happen acr...

30 days ago, I was excited to bring a cornucopia of new ideas into this school year. Plans for a new word study program, ide...

Somewhere after midnight Saturday but before the sun popped up with its bright hello on Sunday morning, we put down our bags and laid down ...

The past few weeks have been too full and too frenzied to summarize here, but I'll try with a list: Road trips, especially with 5 chi...

I had a great conversation today with my sister about writing.  I told her that, if I were to be completely honest with anyone (booorrrring!...

I really have to wonder who the heck came up with the whole "sharing is caring" slogan.  Definitely not the emotionally stunted pe...

Today was an amazing day filled with poetry, and naturally, that made me very happy.  At NWP we talked about how to let kids use today's...

It isn't surprising, I suppose, that I haven't had much to say  I have been been so quiet in the past month. Not surprising, but s...

I'm driving to work. I'm in bed late at night, laptop open, working on a school project. Sitting on the couch, watching some mindl...

I feel a bit like Captain Hook, followed tediously by the tock-tick-tocking of time that refuses to be stopped. I've done all I can do...

Typically, I have a difficult time taking credit for things I've done.  Well, strike that.  If it was something bad, I take all sorts of...

A few weeks ago I decided that I was definitely, no matter what, come what may, taking January 27 off from work.  One of my best friends was...